Thursday, February 4, 2010

3Jack's Top 10 Swings of All Time - #4

My #4 swing of all time belongs to Mickey Wright. Wright holds the distinction of having the second most wins in LPGA history and perhaps more impressively Ben Hogan stated that she had the greatest swing he had ever seen.

Wright certainly had a great swing and is much different from what you see out of most females today as she had a snap release and a tremendous amount of lag. Paul Creamer generates a lot of lag, but then tends to slow down her pivot past impact, then hand throws and swings out to the right and makes a major 'crossover' move.

Wright did move her cranium backwards a little more than the other golfers in the top 10 list, but it's the best female golf swing I've seen (although Vicky Hurst is right up there) and still from an alignment perspective quite excellent. Also, her swing was extremely dynamic for a female.

Most people don't even know who Wright is and when it comes to the greatest female golfer ever, they'll probably put Annika Sorenstam on the list. But IMO, Wright's swing was far superior and from the sounds of it, Wright was a much better ballstriker, but Annika was a far superior putter.

What can we learn from Mickey Wright?

I think we can learn how equipment shapes the golf swing. Here, Wright is hitting persimmon woods with steel shafts and blade style irons with steel shafts. No ultra-light graphite shafts, with oversized off-set irons and all of these other specs that pamper to swing flaws and compensations.

Not only do most of the good female golfers I see play use these swing flaw and compensation pampering clubs, but it's alarming to see how many men, who are probably just as flexible and much stronger physically, use the same type of clubs. I am very interested in the findings from Sevam1 and Steve Elkington on how the golfers of nearly 100 years ago learned how to play and I honestly believe that the lack of improvement in handicaps is lin large part due to the equipment changes not really improving the average golfer's swing.

So, the next time you start to salivate over some graphite, 'easy-to-hit' Callaways, remember that some woman named Mickey Wright would probably throw them in the nearest garbage can And you're better off at the very least getting some $50 vintage blades off of eBay and practicing with them and figuring out how to hit them.

If I told you that I could improve your game and it would cost $50, I'd imagine you would take me up on that offer.

1 comment:

Interesting post. I had never seen Mickey Wright's swing. Definitely solid.

Although I agree that equipment can make up for swing flaws to some extent, it can't totally remove them. For those golfers who play less than 20 times a year, equipment that covers up those flaws can make the game more enjoyable. That being said, I'm on my journey to scratch, so I'm working on developing the most fundamentally sound swing that I can. And not blaming the equipment for my shots, good or bad.